Kris Kent takes us takes us back to Dorset and wrestles with the conundrum we all face, do I need a new rod for a new river?
As we crossed the bridge and headed up the hill away from the Wraxall Brook towards Dorchester and then home I was trying to work out when I would be able to get down to Dorset and start chasing those Wraxall brownies. The season in Dorset starts on the 1st April. hen the penny dropped. If I sloped off work a few days early I could drop by the brook on my way down to Cornwall where I was planning to spend Easter with friends. Perfect timing. I checked the work diary and there was nothing scheduled for the 2nd April so I pencilled it in as holiday.
The next question was, did I have a suitable rod? You might be able to get away with a 7’ rod on the brook but there were some tight spots where it might be a tad long. I have a glass fibre 5’ rod that would certainly be short enough but maybe too much so. So should I pack the Hardy 6’ 2 weight or the Sage 6’3” 3 weight? A 6’ cane rod would be ideal, but I don’t have one of those. But then I remembered the Butter Stick. Designing a great fly rod must be a real challenge, coming up with a name for one even harder. Do you hark back to a bygone age, like Hardy and their Jet? Do you go for a meaningless combination of letters and numbers, like Greys and their GR10? Do you go for something descriptive, like the Hardy Lightweight, or go hi tech, like Hardy and the Sintrix? Do you go for a random word, the Sage Circa for instance? Whoever at Redington came up with the name ‘Butter Stick’ must have been on the wacky baccy. The Butter Stick series of rods are modern high modulus fibreglass rods which have a slow action and retro styling reminiscent of cane. The most striking thing about them is the bright yellow blank and orange whippings. They aren’t readily available in the UK but I got a 6’6” 4 weight sent over from the States when they came out last year. It would be perfect for the Wraxall Brook
My visits to Cornwall are always a challenge. The biggest problem is getting all the gear in the car. It was going to be even harder this time because I was going straight from Cornwall to North Yorkshire. So I would have to pack twelve days worth of clothes. I would be fishing on the Wraxall Brook, Taw system and Skirfare so would need a variety rods and reels plus I normally take a chainsaw and long reach hedge trimmer plus all the associated paraphernalia so I can help out in my friends sprawling garden. All that plus beer, wine and food doesn’t leave much room in the car for me. But with a bit of pushing and shoving it all went in, and I could still see out. Bonus.
Plan was to be up before dawn so I could beat the rush hour and be in the syndicate car park before 09.00. By the time I’d wriggled into my waders and walked down to the bottom of the beat I should be in the river for 10.00. That would leave me a full day to really explore every nook and cranny.
I woke before the alarm excited by the day ahead. A quick shower meant I was in the car half an hour later. I decided to skip breakfast and grab a bacon buttie on route. As I joined the A34 I suddenly realised I didn’t know where to stop for a bacon buttie. Heading south my thoughts kept turning to where to find a bacon buttie. As I joined the A303 more mental effort was being consumed by this question. As Stonehenge emerged from the early morning mist I could think of little else than crispy bacon wrapped in a white bread roll with lashing of tomato ketchup. But where? Then I remembered a passing conversation I’d had with Steve Skuce. He said he and Honor sometimes stopped at Joseph’s on the A303. e claimed it was the best bacon buttie ever. Just after Winterbourne Stoke I nearly missed the lay-by and prompted a blast on the horn from the car behind as I made a rather hurried right turn. Steve was right, it was a great bacon buttie.
With this weight off my mind I could now concentrate on the day ahead. Just over two hours after I left home I turned off the main road and wound my way down the narrow lane into Lower Wraxall. I slowed down as I crossed the bridge to catch a glimpse of the brook. It looked very low and very clear!
Then I spotted Jim and Nick already working upstream. Bugger, they had beaten me to the river. I knew I wasn’t the first to fish the brook that year as I had seen on Facebook that a couple of other members had been on the water the previous day. But I had hoped I would have the pick of the fishing that day. Not to be.
I pulled up in front of Jim’s van and sorted out my gear. The Redington Butter Stick was already rigged up from the previous day’s trip to the Loddon. Waders were a bit clammy but it made it easier to get the boots on. It was still quite cold so I pulled on an extra fleece and topped it off with my wading jacket. There had been a steady drizzle coming down throughout the journey down and it felt like it was set in for the day. As I pulled my rucksack on I admired the simple elegance of the small Church, St Mary's, before heading off to find Jim and Nick and to see how they were getting on.
I have been a member of a number of clubs and syndicates over the years. On many you were lucky to see another member from April through to end of September so it was nice to have the opportunity to have a good blether with Jim and Nick. They looked frustrated when I tracked them down. The river was very low and clear, much lower than when we were here a month earlier for the working party. They had spooked a few fish working up from the old bridge. They were both fishing a single nymph below a fluffy yarn indicator. As I stood and watched, Jim’s yarn dipped and the first fish of the day was on. Jim looked pleased as punch cradling the fin perfect, beautifully marked wild brown trout in his hand.
I could see that they were keen to press on so I made my apologies and headed upstream promising to meet up later for a coffee. The brook cuts deep into rich brown soils meandering tightly through scrubby woodland. The high banks are carpeted in nettle that in a couple of months would be up at shoulder height. For now they were just starting to push up along with large drifts of flag iris were the soil is saturated. Primroses, celandine and wood anemones provided splashes of colour. As I tramped upstream the smell of garlic, crushed under foot, filled the air. I tried a leaf and it nearly blew my head off, powerfully peppery it lingered in my mouth for some hours.
There is a small lake about half way up the beat, reputed to hold fish of some sort. I stared into the water as I wandered upstream straining to see if I could spot some sort of movement or shadow that might give a fish away. I saw nothing. Just above the lake I slipped down a steep bank and plopped into the Wraxall Brook. The run looked promising. A fast channel on the far bank hitting an old stump, the brook ricocheting towards me, some deep water beneath the stump that might hold a nice fish. I could have tried a bushy dry hoping to bring a hungry fish up but I hadn’t seen any rises and there wasn’t much fly life active. Then I remembered a day I spent with Luke Bannister, cane rod supremo, on the River Ottery in North Cornwall. Luke would flick a small weighted nymph into every nook and cranny, spots I would have normally walked straight past, nearly always producing a tug and often a bright little fish. The Ottery and Wraxall Brook are similar waters so it seemed worth a try. I tied a small white bead headed nymph with a scruffy hares ear sort of body on to a shortish length of level copolymer loop to looped onto one of Luke’s stiff mono furled leaders. I was also using one of Luke’s ‘small stream’ lines specially designed for this kind of close quarters fishing. The stiffish furled leader would turn the cast over without much fly line out, at least that was the theory.
My challenge to myself was to fish thoroughly but quickly. I have a tendency towards ‘lead foot’, I become rooted to a spot even though nothing is happening. Plus I often overlook spots that could be productive. I proceeded as I intended, no more than a couple of casts into every likely pool or run, under every tree, covering the water diligently. The Butter Stick rod performed perfectly effortlessly projecting the fly exactly where I wanted time after time. That first section produced nothing. I scratched my head and moved on. As I came around a bend ahead I could see a small man made weir, a throwback to the previous owner of the brook. It had achieved its aim. Below the weir a deep pool had been scoured in which a fish or two should be sitting, a little way below the water sped up as the depth decreased. It looked perfect.
I worked up the tongue of faster water fanning my casts into the seams down either edge and into the faster water between. Nothing. I crept up to the weir, keeping as low a profile a possible, and tossed the nymph in so it bounced off the weir and into the deeper scour below. Second time around the line stopped momentarily and as I lifted the rod I could feel life on the end of my line. The fight was brief. A quick photo for posterity, it was my first ever fish from the Wraxall Brook after all, and it was back into its watery world. A beautiful wild brown trout of about 8”.
In the old days I would reward myself with a cigarette. These days I make do with a coffee. I sat back heavily onto the bank and drank in the experience alongside the strong black coffee. The pressure was off, I wasn’t going to blank. Then that strange elation that comes from conquering a small wild trout. Then the rich tapestry of sights, smells and sounds that make up the moment. Finally the realisation that there was still a good deal of water to explore so I had better get on with it.
I slipped back downstream to quickly see how Jim and Nick were getting on. I found them in a perfect little run where the river undercut a steep bank and cut a narrow deeper channel. As I stood and watched as first Jim and then Nick teased out fish on the nymph fished under a yarn indicator.
The afternoon progressed in much the same vein as the morning. Some trouty looking spots would fail to yield fish whilst others gave up their treasures more readily. By close of play I had had six small wild brownies on the nymph. But the most memorable part of the day was just before I reached the more heavily wooded section at the top of the beat. A long steady run ended abruptly where a fallen tree, square across the brook, forced it to take a 90⁰ detour towards my bank. I was standing planning my approach to the run when I thought I saw a rise. As the drizzle eased and the wind dropped a few small olives, caddis and the ever present midge had either become more active or just more visible and I had been expecting something to move to them. I stood and stared and watched for another rise but nothing stirred the glassy surface. I decided to tie on a dry anyway and as my attention shifted away from the river to the process of snipping off the nymph, selecting and tying on a dry I thought I saw another rise. I picked a small olive emerger pattern. I drew off some extra line, the Hardy reel clicking reassuringly, extended it with a single false cast and delivered the fly about six feet ahead of where I thought I’d seen the fish rise. The fly had barely dug into the surface before a small brown trout shot out from the deeper water and hammered the fly. The gin clear water meant I saw every moment of the take and I was lucky not to strike too soon and pluck the fly away. I held my nerve and was rewarded with another lovely Wraxall resident. As I released the fish I discovered the source of the rise, it was actually a drip. Drizzle gathering on a high bough and falling to the surface. The fish I caught hadn’t been rising but for some reason decided my pattern was too good to ignore, its enthusiasm got the better of it.
I prospected up to the top of the beat and was rewarded with a final fish from right on the top boundary, well if I’m honest it might have been from the next riparian owners water but I couldn’t be sure. Some might call it poaching, or as one friends calls it ‘guesting’, but it still went in my catch return.
I wandered back downstream expecting to find Jim and Nick hard at it but they were nowhere to be seen so I assumed they had headed home satisfied with their day. Before calling it a day I sat on a bough that made an ideal seat for a fisherman and emptied my flask.
Ever hopeful I scanned the water for a final rise but it never came. o coffee quaffed I gathered up a few wild garlic leaves to take to my friends in Cornwall and retreated to St Mary’s Church and my waiting car.
As TomTom guided me down the winding narrow lanes of Somerset and onwards to Devon and Cornwall I reflected on the day. A new river under my belt, some new friends made and some new insights into fly fishing gained. A wonderful investment of a day and I leave a better angler than I arrived. Can’t wait for another visit.
Biography:
Kris Kent has been fly fishing and trotting for brown trout and grayling for over 20 years in the UK, Europe and Scandinavia. He is PR officer for the Grayling Society and helps out The Wild Trout Trust with their online communications and events.